Lloyds Bank Gem ®
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Raising the bar for transaction banking
Read time: roughly 6 mins | Date of posting: 17/06/2025
Lewis Anderson, Director and Head of Transaction Banking Solutions at Lloyds International, outlines five key strategies for firms across the Crown Dependencies seeking to improve cash management and payment efficiency.
Transaction banking in the Crown Dependencies is undergoing a period of transformation. Treasury and operational teams at corporate and financial institutions, along with client directors at trust and corporate service providers (TCSPs) and fund administrators; are increasingly expecting faster, cheaper, and smarter solutions.
Outdated processes like cumbersome online portals with card readers are being replaced. Instead, firms aim to integrate banking seamlessly into their own systems via straight through processing.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution. However, the following strategies should be on the agenda of all companies seeking a digital transformation of their transaction banking practices.
Lewis Anderson
Explore technology
Client preferences are changing fast. Just a year ago, Lloyds International clients’ payments were typically routed through internal systems to finance or treasury teams, manually uploaded into the bank’s platform, and followed up to confirm completion.
Today, clients increasingly want to automate payments, receive statements, and approve transactions directly within their own systems: around a third of Lloyds Bank Gem® clients are on a journey towards this integration.
Payment requests and statement files can flow seamlessly from client systems to the bank via host-to-host secure file transfer protocol (SFTP) or application programming interface (API), with real-time updates and no need for repeated logins. Lloyds Bank’s Gem platform is also fully Swift-enabled (and ISO 20022-ready) to facilitate multi-bank requirements.
Importantly, integrated solutions allow clients to set their own authorisation workflows within their platforms, maintaining full oversight while significantly improving speed and efficiency.
Increase automation
Leveraging new technologies can increase efficiency and free up time. However, firms have nuanced requirements: to unlock efficiency, it’s important to take time to assess specific pain points and understand available functionality.
Virtual accounts, for example, can improve reconciliation by allowing a company to segregate client receipts while retaining funds within a single physical account – a more efficient solution than physically separating funds.
Another solution, sweeping, can also reduce reconciliation time. In addition, it supports liquidity management and enables funds to be placed on deposit more efficiently.
Sweeping functionality has recently been added to our Gem platform to allow clients to consolidate balances across accounts, countries and banks. The solution is flexible, supporting target balances, zero balances, end-of-day, and intraday movements. It is also multi-bank capable: funds can be swept from other banks, reducing the need for clients to login to multiple platforms.
Sweeping enhances visibility and control while enabling clients to better leverage interest-bearing products and, importantly, free up resource and time.
Leverage self-serve
Having the ability to action tasks quickly without third-party input can simplify a variety of tasks and streamline treasury activity. However, at the same time, dedicated support is critical.
Lloyds’ clients have the best of both worlds. While we offer specialist help, especially for more complex transactions, we are also expanding self-serve capabilities for clients.
By the end of the year, clients will be able to view liquidity rates and fixed-term deposits through Gem. This removes the need for manual bookings, rate confirmations, and off-platform funding. Our FX services are also evolving. Transactional FX linked to payments is already live in Gem, offering full transparency and fixed margins. Soon clients will be able to buy and hold FX independently of transactions.
Another important recent development is Lloyds’ integration of KYC360’s digital platform into its onboarding process, enabling clients to open accounts and manage ‘Know Your Customer’ requirements themselves. By simplifying the onboarding journey, Lloyds’ clients have a fast, streamlined account opening – a key requirement in the Crown Dependencies, especially for TCSPs and fund administrators.
Collaborate with your bank
Having an active relationship with your bank and adopting a collaborative approach is a critical part of improving transaction banking efficiency.
To better support businesses and engage with clients in the Crown Dependencies, Transaction Banking at Lloyds International has reshaped its leadership and team structure. The goal is to be a strong partner to clients, acting as a sounding board to help them find the right approach for their needs. “Our reorganisation has given us greater autonomy and control pan-island, to allow for better responsiveness and faster implementation through a single point of contact. It also better connects our clients to the wider Corporate & Institutional business in the UK and other specialist support functions across the Group” explains Lewis.
The reorganisation has been welcomed by clients. “We really value having one knowledgeable and empowered point of contact at Lloyds – someone who can handle everything from rates and technology improvements to payments and UK onboarding across all Crown Dependency clients that we work with – without needing to speak to different people in different teams or locations,” says Toby Sawyer, Director, CX & Growth at Flinq, a Jersey-based Fintech company that provides cash management solutions for TCSPs.
Working collaboratively requires a two-way conversation. “Listening to clients’ feedback informs enhancements and changes in how we serve them,” says Lewis “For instance, on one end of the scale we had a client request a print option for a specific screen, so that a physical copy could held. This feature was built and released rapidly. On the other end of the scale, we had several clients looking for multi-bank sweeping capabilities, which we launched earlier this month.”
Assess obstacles and set priorities
Business transformation takes time and resource. A 2024 survey conducted by Treasury Management International revealed that some of the most significant barriers to implementing technology include integration challenges (35%), cost (21%), and limited resources (11%)1. Ironically, these are challenges that can be solved through technological solutions – many of which help to reduce costs and free up resources, while seamlessly integrating with existing platforms.
Assessing obstacles – whether technological or otherwise – and setting clear priorities enables firms to better identify where their banking partners can provide support and deliver relevant solutions.
For instance, one challenge identified by Lloyds’ TCSP and fund administrator clients was the inability to give their underlying clients account autonomy. On certain account types, only a parent entity was able to make payments, and approve transactions. “It created some operational challenges for us because it meant our underlying clients had restricted payment access. We asked Lloyds to address it, and they delivered,” says Debbie Du Feu, Director at Forward Group, a TCSP in Jersey.
Lloyds International now offer ‘parent and child’ complex mandate functionality, allowing a group-level mandate at the parent level, alongside individual mandates for subsidiary accounts, each with its own authorisers.
1 Treasurers: Why Embracing the Latest Technology is No Longer Optional
Simpler, faster, and better
Banking in the Crown Dependencies is complex, spanning multiple client types that service an array of different customers. However, there is a unifying demand for banks to improve client experience, increase efficiency and provide greater support and guidance. In short, clients expect more and want banks to be proactive, creative, and solution-oriented.
“In response, we are accelerating innovation, responding to client needs with enhanced technology and further streamlined our account opening,” says Lewis. “Whether through sweeping, integration or expanded self-serve capabilities, our goal is clear: to make transaction banking simpler, faster, and better.”
Lloyds Bank Gem® is a registered trademark of Lloyds Bank plc. Lloyds Bank plc. Registered office: 25 Gresham Street, London EC2V 7HN. Registered in England and Wales No. 2065. Lloyds Bank plc is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority under registration number 119278.
